Almost every video i find on youtube has it making strange evolving pads..could it do anything "normal", like electric piano tones and such, found on the previous ensoniqs? I plan on getting one.. not anytime soon at all.. just eventually down there in the lane.. just want to lay my hands on the keys and tune it.. just one thing i wanna do in my life

Yes - there's some good electric piano and organ sounds. Probably would do bass ok too. It also has a good drum set.But the magic of fizmo is to explore it's ability to go to some strange (and wonderful places). The best thing is that it mostly stays quite musical as you dive arround inside it's sound engine and thus is a joy to explore.I suggest you look at the preset list at the end of the manual - should be easy access online and this might give you a better idea of what it offers.Hope you get to enjoy one soon!

"On the following day , the sorcery undespairingly continued: I changed my series, chose other sequences, cut other lengths, spliced different progressions, and hoped afresh for a miracle in sound." (Stockhausen)

if you want normal sounds and transwaves, your best bet is to buy a lesser ensoniq. I've purchased an sq2 plus (or something like that) for $100 in my area and it's very capable. VFX can be tricky to find and tricky to keep working. The point is: there are other ensoniq machines that can do the weird stuff - albeit with more difficulty - that are a lot easier to acquire than a fizmo. the fizmo is just more hands on and that's why it's so expensive. and it's purple.

FWIW - you could likely get similar results to the harmonic movement type effects of the fizmo if you were willing to invest the time in the newer Kurzweil PC3 or PC3K series. That would allow you to have SUPREME normal sounds and lots of weird stuff as well. could probably get similar affects from any VAST machine.

Fizmo is a synth that totally avoids and refuses deterministic sound programming. But Sounddiver software can help a lot....

It can make lovely, beautiful electric pianos, can emulate VAs, this synth can make a huge range of sounds, but most of them are lot easier to program on modern VAs or romplers.

Best of Fizmo comes with its characteristic sound. Its effect section is unique, also its patch structure (4 pars of two traswaves each one) High poly for a synth of its era (48) plus a magnific arp section. Radias also can use 8 voices per patch, but with half poly (24). More bizarre than functional.

About the Ensoniq SQ-1 plus, it was my first synth, and one of the smallest machines produced by Ensoniq. It was like the competition to the Kawaii workstations produced on early 90ies. Nice sound, a cool tiny 7000 notes sequencer, but VERY limited synthesis possibilities.

"If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you won´t find another"Carl Sagan

samuraipizzacat29 wrote:if you want normal sounds and transwaves, your best bet is to buy a lesser ensoniq. I've purchased an sq2 plus (or something like that) for $100 in my area and it's very capable. VFX can be tricky to find and tricky to keep working. The point is: there are other ensoniq machines that can do the weird stuff - albeit with more difficulty - that are a lot easier to acquire than a fizmo. the fizmo is just more hands on and that's why it's so expensive. and it's purple.

By "lesser" does the esq-1 count? I have that one. I haven't used it much yet because it needs a battery change.

FWIW - you could likely get similar results to the harmonic movement type effects of the fizmo if you were willing to invest the time in the newer Kurzweil PC3 or PC3K series. That would allow you to have SUPREME normal sounds and lots of weird stuff as well. could probably get similar affects from any VAST machine.

But... the fizmo looks better

minime123 wrote:you dont buy a fizmo to make "normal" sounds on it...mini

samuraipizzacat29 wrote:FWIW - you could likely get similar results to the harmonic movement type effects of the fizmo if you were willing to invest the time in the newer Kurzweil PC3 or PC3K series. That would allow you to have SUPREME normal sounds and lots of weird stuff as well. could probably get similar affects from any VAST machine.

But... the fizmo looks better

Buy a Kurzweil PC3, get some purple spray, and paint it like a Fizmo

Kurzweil is simple great for electric pianos and similar.

"If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you won´t find another"Carl Sagan

Tiger Jackson wrote:By "lesser" does the esq-1 count? I have that one. I haven't used it much yet because it needs a battery change.

any ensoniq machine that includes transwaves is what I'm talking about. there's a half dozen or so machines that have them but you'd need to research it to find exactly which ones as I'm not sure atm. I think sq2 plus, vfx, ts, asr.

errrrr it might be sq-1 plus and sq2 that have transwaves. really forget the nomenclature.

samuraipizzacat29 wrote:the fizmo is just more hands on and that's why it's so expensive. and it's purple.

Yeah, especially if one considers having to be tethered to archaic c**p like Sounddiver to completely edit a sound to be a hands-on activity.

The Fizmo is capable of lovely (weird and normal) sounds, but is ultimately the most frustrating synth I've ever used (I've owned three). The miniscule display and inability to edit all the parameters (especially the awesome FX section) is like painting a portrait through a peephole.

The TS/ASR series can load any wavetable and be edited much easier, though there may be a more of a learning curve, they would ultimately be more flexible synth and less a niche jingly noise maker.

If you're looking to sate your evolving noise beast while waiting, check out HGF-Sounds. Protoplasm and STS have free demo versions that use Fizmo sounds as oscillators and can go far beyond the Fizmo; they're the only softsynths I've ever used regularly. (As said sounds can then be put into a sampler and further layered/manipulated).

Yes indeed it can do normal stuff. And you don't even have to make it yourself as the factory presets for the rack version has a lot of analog style sounds as you can see below. If that isn't enough there is a soundset from a former Ensonique employe here http://www.soundengine.com/html/synth/ensfizmo.html

Radiolaire. A form of plancton wich always has captivated me due to their beautiful structures.

I love the Fizmo´s effects. They are unique. Is a shame it has only one mono input.

$30 for 64 Fizmo patches? I prefer to run out of patience programming them....

tallowwaters wrote:The TS/ASR series can load any wavetable and be edited much easier, though there may be a more of a learning curve, they would ultimately be more flexible synth and less a niche jingly noise maker.

I had a TS-10 as my only synth on middle nineties. They were great workstations aimed to all kinds of music genres. Brassy sound, and with the hability of creating sample maps all over the keyboard, with one sample per key, something really innovative for those years. Equiped with a big sequencer and a big variety of sounds. And they were f**k expensive.

After Ensoniq closed, E-mu systems released some rompler keyboards, with the label "E-mu Ensoniq" on the front. The E-mu Ensoniq Halo is a proteus 2500 engine, equiped with all the transwaves from the Fizmo, but they are obviously samples, not transwaves. But it can make very similar stuff to the Fizmo, if you know how to program the patchcord section. A mod matrix with 96 slots per patch....

"If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies you won´t find another"Carl Sagan